The point has been brought up that CafePress.com only has white shirts. Suggestions for alternative locations please? Very strong preference for a internet based site that does all the work similar to cafepress.com ...

I purchase a T from cafepress.com and even though it's not silkscreen, it's held up pretty well so far. It's been washed at least a couple dozen times and the image is still in good shape. The advantage of using a company like this (I'm sure there are others) is that it's easily accessible to everyone.

I vote NO to cafepress.com! its like $12.99 per shirt, and its just an iron on AND only in white/grey.

I say find a deal with a screenprinter for like $5/pop. Like i mentioned, i have a friend that IS a screenprinter. Good work. His site is www.blackjackhumboldt.com, not much there yet but they screenprint ANYTHING. Hats, shirts, sweatshirts, cd's, etc.

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I agree on the cafepress.com sucking but before you guys go off suggesting a bunch of sites, this is what I gained by my conversation with saint.

#1 Online sites are very preferable and if it's not online based then it has to make up for it in other areas in a huge way. (Not just 2 bucks cheaper.)

#2 We really don't want to have to deal with sites that have a service fee per design or minimum orders. If they do have these things then the design cost must be very low and the minimum order extremely low (e.g. like 25 or less).

#3 None of these are rules, just things to go by. With that being said saint will most likely have the final say. What I have went over so far is what Saint says he would like in a place and therefore there probably a good rule of thumb to go by.

Now that that's out of the way, please keep it up, but check out these details before you post suggestions please.

"#1 Online sites are very preferable and if it's not online based then it has to make up for it in other areas in a huge way. (Not just 2 bucks cheaper.)"

I'm willing to bet that most t-shirt shops do not have their own site.. After all it's not that big of a business. IMO, I think your going to find the best deals at local t-shirt shops. If you still disagree, there is still a possibility that the online sites will come to some agreement on a deal if it's going to be a quantity.

I think cafepress.com is advantageous because:1) They are online2) you don't have to order 500 shirts per orderBut they do fall short in colors - no black, navy, etc.

We get shirts printed at work sometimes for events that we sponsor, BUT there is ALWAYS a minimum order of like 300-600 shirts. Some printers have different minimum orders but they all have something(meaning, no one at a time printing). They look awesome silkscreened, but that means a HUGE investment up front for buying a bunch of shirts and selling them himself- cafepress seems to print an order as they go(is this correct?)

I doubt anyone would want to shell out the $$$ for a bunch of t-shirts, even if it's only 100 at a time. Most t-shirt places need a minimum or else it's just not cost effective - kind of like offset printing, where most of the cost is an overhead. I think that's why cafepress is so popular

The point has been brought up that CafePress.com only has white shirts. Suggestions for alternative locations please? Very strong preference for a internet based site that does all the work similar to cafepress.com ...

The following are some online places I found that will do screen printing.

This site has a 24 shirt minimum with prices in the $15-$16 range for 4 colors on the front and 4 colors on the back. It would be in the $10 range if we only printed 4 colors on one side. They have black shirts.http://artapart.com/secure/AutoQuote.asp

This site has an 18 shirt minimum. Prices look to be in the $11.50 range per shirt according to my calculations. I didn't see any colors listed for the shirts. So I'm not sure if they have black or not.http://customlogofactory.com/screenprices.htm

The first one looks like it could possibly work. But we would probably have to collect all the money from folks and then order so nobody would have to front the money.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't endorsing cafepress.com, just pointing out they seem like they could handle the 'few-shirts-at-a-time' order. Maybe some other places could too. I myself prefer black, but I wouldn't mind white. not grey though.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't endorsing cafepress.com, just pointing out they seem like they could handle the 'few-shirts-at-a-time' order. Maybe some other places could too. I myself prefer black, but I wouldn't mind white. not grey though.

Check out http://www.zazzle.com/ -- They seem to have a good mix of products available, and will send 10% to the contributor (i.e. back to upkeep of the FAQ) on anything sold if we set it up right... Opinions?

Check out http://www.zazzle.com/ -- They seem to have a good mix of products available, and will send 10% to the contributor (i.e. back to upkeep of the FAQ) on anything sold if we set it up right... Opinions?

I like the "Basic T, Sleeve Raglan" that baseball looking shirt thing. But for the most part I think everything was white there, well, at least not black. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Check out http://www.zazzle.com/ -- They seem to have a good mix of products available, and will send 10% to the contributor (i.e. back to upkeep of the FAQ) on anything sold if we set it up right... Opinions?

They seem like a viable option - and the 10% for board upkeep is an excellent idea!

Zazzle doesn't offer any black shirts, but they do offer colors and a great variety of styles. Soemthing they also offer is chemical infusion (is that hte correct term?) printing. I'm not so sure why everyone is hung up on screen printing as professional shirts are not screen printed. Screen printing is much much better than heat transfers (aka iron-ons which is what cafepress does) but infusing the ink is the only way to get a non-"puffy" image with a high color pallette that is still durable. Concert t-shirts and children's shirts are often printed using this method. Screen printing is used more for printing generic corporate logos on various materials, including shirts, jerseys and garmet bags. It's a super low pallette count (usually 2-4 colors max) and has a raised slick feel to the ink, which is really annoying imho.

Just some stuff thought I would share, not that it makes that much of a difference. So in case you haven't figured it out, so far zazzle gets my vote.

Looks good but they have a 8 color maximum limit. That doesnt' sound so bad, but they count colors for front and back seperately, so that's 4 colors per side. Also they use dot printing technique for high color pictures, which makes a very noticable dither on graphics.

Not saying it's a bad solution, it's just it would extremely limit the design we used.

............Is web based (has a cool little online quick quote tool I.E. I put 50 t-shirts in Orange with 4 colors on the front and 1 color on the back it was 14.50 a shirt ahbeit John you should charge 20 a shirt but 14 bucks for 4 color silk screen is very strong.)

Looks good but they have a 8 color maximum limit. That doesnt' sound so bad, but they count colors for front and back seperately, so that's 4 colors per side. Also they use dot printing technique for high color pictures, which makes a very noticable dither on graphics.

Not saying it's a bad solution, it's just it would extremely limit the design we used.

All screenprinting uses a 4 color process. That's how it's done. That doesn't mean you only get 4 actual colors. You create an image, then do a 4 color seperation (CMYK). You can overlap any two colors to create other colors (C+Y=Green).

I have several friends in the screenprinting business. Once a design is done, I would be happy to get us an estimate.

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All screenprinting uses a 4 color process. That's how it's done. That doesn't mean you only get 4 actual colors. You create an image, then do a 4 color seperation (CMYK). You can overlap any two colors to create other colors (C+Y=Green).

I have several friends in the screenprinting business. Once a design is done, I would be happy to get us an estimate.

That's incorrect. Screen printing is another term for 'Silk-Screen Printing'. You are thinking of process-color printing (standard CMYK). 2 totally different things. The very term 'screen' is used to describe the opacity of a certain spot color (be it CMYK or a pantone color).

yeah youre right. two different things.....i was just talking to a friend that does printing. Anyway, he says he uses the Pantone Matching System...you mix the inks to create other colors...but you start with like 3 colors (+black) i believe to do this.

I think some people here think that 4 color means you only get 4 actual colors. that's all i really wanted to clarify.

blah!

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yeah youre right. two different things.....i was just talking to a friend that does printing. Anyway, he says he uses the Pantone Matching System...you mix the inks to create other colors...but you start with like 3 colors (+black) i believe to do this.

I think some people here think that 4 color means you only get 4 actual colors. that's all i really wanted to clarify.

blah!

I checked out this site and their process thuroughly... in this case you do only get 4 colors. They don't do dithered matching or blending. Check out their examples if you don't believe me.

I checked out this site and their process thuroughly... in this case you do only get 4 colors. They don't do dithered matching or blending. Check out their examples if you don't believe me.

*I assume we are talking about contagiousgraphics.com*I checked out their examples - too bad they can't use real pictures of t-shirts instead of computer mock-ups. It would be nice to see some of their designs up-close, then have someone model it so we could say, "Ok, I see you can do that kind of image - we now have something to work with." that would solve the color and dithering issues we are discussing.

Looking at the Zazzle site... they seem to be exactly what we want. Especially with the royalty thing. They do offer other color shirts. However, if you read about their process, they do say that their printing on colored shirts will change the color of the picture. They do show some examples. So basically if you pick a different color other than white the printing will not be the same. So to me that says that only white shirts are available with the "true" design. Definately something to consider.

But then I shouldn't ---smurfette--- about color changes cause I use a PC monitor in my cabinet Hey it's close enough and it was free!